Iridiscent Sharks air bubbles

[ducas005]

Hi. I had a flat air stone (you know, shaped like a ruler, lot of air bubbles) connected to an air pump in my smaller 10 g tanks. I had 2 sharks there. Pretty soon I bought a 45g and after cycling introduced the sharks there, along with mollies and platy. The 45g has no air pump driven mechanism, but I was told with the Marineland Emperor 400 I wouldn't need to oxygenate the tank (which is planted with 5 plants BTW) and also these are harmful for the plants.

Right now all my fish except the sharks are fine. They don't swim around as they used to... Someone told me they like fast moving water and the airstone in the big tank might be a good idea. Also that mollies will also like it. However, I am a bit worried about the plants (2 hygro, 1 money wort, 1 amazon). Can anyone advise?

Water levels are fine, I do weekly water changes.

 

[tkos]

It won't be a problem if you want to add the air bubbles. Your plants will be fine. The problem arises when you want to add CO2 to the tank. All the extra surface movement means that the extra CO2 will escape and you will be wasting your money. But without CO2 added the extra surface moevment will actually just mean that the CO2 level in your tank will balance out with the air around the tank. No problem at all.

Another option to get a bit of a current going in the tank is to add a power head, sort of an underwater pump. It makes a current without all the extra bubbles and is generally capable of doing it in the direction you want.

Weekly changes are fine and you seem to have a setup with plenty of oxygen capability. No problems there at all.

Congrats on getting that bigger tank. ID sharks really do need it. Watch out though as they can outgrow a 45 gallon as well.